​Toronto, Aug 9 (Canadian-Media): An American commercial mass media company, CBS Corp -- that creates content and distributes it to audiences, around the world, across a variety of platforms -- had been planning to expand its digital streaming service in Canada in 2018, media reports said.

CBC, earlier known as Columbia Broadcasting System (CBC) is a broadcast television network that is a flagship property of CBS Corporation, official reports said.

CBS All Access -- an over-the-top subscription streaming video on demand service owned and operated by CBS -- was launched in the US in October 2014 and gave access to subscribers to watch the network's entire catalogue of more than 9,000 episodes with expectations of four million subscribers by the end of the year, CBCNews reports said.

CBS All Access is expected to allow subscribers, continued the reports, to access CBSN, a 24/7 news service's select specialty channels owned by CBS, such as Showtime -- without needing a cable television subscription -- from the network's daytime, prime time and late-night content.

"CBS All Access is growing faster than we anticipated domestically, and now represents a whole new opportunity internationally as well," CBS chair Leslie Moonves said.

"By going direct to consumer around the world, we will facilitate new connections between the global audience and our industry-leading premium content," News reports said.

Like Netflix, said the reports, different shows would be available at different times in different regions subject to the type of license-sharing deals signed by the subscribers.

Digital rights to many CBS shows in Canada are owned by Canadian broadcasters because some CBS shows are already available on Netflix in Canada.

Bell Media, for example, had acquired -- reported last year -- the exclusive rights to the forthcoming CBS Show Star Trek: Discovery in Canada and the show, it was announced, would be later available to stream on Bell's streaming service, CraveTV.

But uncertainty looms regarding the quantity and availability of CBS's current, future or past offerings at launch.

The outcome of content that's already available on other services, said reports, was also uncertain.

The cost of the service is $5.99 US a month in the US and pricing details for Canada was not mentioned in CBS's release on Monday.

Canada had been identified as the first foreign market more details are pending.